Panda Victim still looking for recovery looking for help

[bobforesi]

I am an internet retailer hit by Panda and have made many changes to my site since first being hit on feb 2011. I had a slight recovery last september but have since slipped back again.

I have scoured the internet for panda recoveries for internet retailers like me but I have not seen any.

If anyone knows of recoveries of a site like mine (wackyplanet.com) -- we are on a yahoo store platform I would aappreciate any info as I am looking for an SEO who has experience with Panda as it relates to sites like mine.

[RobertFisher]

Arthur,

It appears you understand what Panda was and that it was about content that was too thin, duplicated, too many advertisers on a page, etc. Many think it was about links due to misinformation.

So, I looked through the site and checked several pages for duped content and saw none. Yes, it is a little light, but given the type of site, I don't see a need for a lot more content on product pages, etc. The only thing that requires a bit more checking is the internal linking that you have but from what I can see that is well within limits per page.

So, the question arises: what drop did you see? Did you receive anything in GWMT from Google regarding any type of violation, etc.

Hope this helps a bit

[benjaminspak]

Things look in order on you site, are you using someone else's text?

[conversiontactics]

Hi Robert,

when you say well within limits per page, what is a safe limit for internal link per page.

Thanks

[RobertFisher]

The "rule" has been 100-150 but in this YouTube video Matt Cutts talks about that as being no longer valid. So, the number is somewhere above that, but I look at how does the page look in terms of internal links. Are there a ton of affiliate links, advertising links, etc. 
Your site does not seem to have that.

[bobforesi]

Robert,

My drop started in Feb. 2011 and is now down 90% from that time period. Our traffic does fluctuate do the type of products we sell -- whether something becomes trendy or not etc.

We changed the site substantiailly deleting half our pages last year and adding content to the ones we kept.

We received no warnings.in webmaster tools but we are trying to get rid of bad links

We had a bump of 25% last september but there has been a steady decline again after panda updates this year.

[RobertFisher]

Arthur,

When you say the drop started on 2/2011 and is now down 90% we are talking about 18 months of tracking. So, for 3/2011 where was unique organic traffic/Google compared to 2/2011? Or, better where was 01/2011 compared to 2/2011. then where was 1/2012 compared to 1/2011? Last, where was 8/2012 compared to 8/2011 and to 7/2012?

That will give you a bit more of a picture as to whether the traffic is dropping gradually or if it is as the result of penalties. You can take the algorithm change dates from moz: (Thanks Keri) and compare them to your traffic at those times. Are you seeing specific dips at those times. So, for Panda one which was in Feb 2011, do you see a specific drop in ranking/traffic?

What you have to watch is if you have a problem that is not the result of a change at Google, and you are blaming Google changes, you will attempt to correct the wrong thing and lose time and business. There are a ton of questions that need to be asked when you are looking at 18 months of decline. I am not sure they can all be asked here, but to the extent that you can provide a bit of direction, I will attempt to provide an answer(s).

Best,

[bobforesi]

Here are the stats:

3/2011 unique organic traffic/Google compared to 2/2011?  -47%

2/2011 compared to  01/2011 -7.7%  (2/25/11 compared to 1/25/11   -55% )

1/2012 compared to 1/2011  -65%

8/2012 compared to 8/2011 and to 7/2012 -52%

If it looks like a Panda, walks like a panda....